Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning and welcome to Friday.
For some of us, that was only a four-day
work week, but why does that sometimes
feel like it's a longer week? It feels a
bit hard to get back to the grind. It's
like when you go back to work after a
long vacation. It's a heavy lift
sometimes.
Nevertheless, we've all made it yet
again to another Friday and it's National
Sticky Bun Friday too. So let's just make
this Friday that much sweeter and grab
your best friend because today is also
no one eats a lone day. Alright, let's go
ahead and just jump into today's
episode with the quotes. One fun
nostalgic quote and then a second quote
to tease our book review later in the
episode. Hopefully one of these quotes
will speak to you and kickstart your day
in a positive direction. Alright, the
first quote is from Jennifer Garner who
said, "Believe in yourself and all
that you are. Know that there is
something inside you that is greater
than any obstacle." End quote. And
today's teaser quote
from the book review is,
"Gentleness and friendliness were always
stronger than fury and force." End quote.
And as usual, we'll unpack those here in
just a minute during the book review
segment, but first let's jump into our
usual dose of fun and historic facts from
this day in history. In today's news,
facts and birthdays
are for February 21st.
Starting way back in 1804, that's when
the world's first steam locomotive ran
for the very first time
along a tramway in Wales.
Then in 1878, the world's first telephone
book is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.
The directory consisted of a single piece
of cardboard and it comprised of
only 50 numbers. Then in 1885, the
Washington Monument was dedicated on the
grounds of the mall in Washington, DC.
Then jumping all the way up to 1958,
that's when the peace symbol was designed
by Gerald Holtham. Then in 1972, the US
President Richard M. Nixon, he paid a
state visit to the People's Republic of
China and that ended a 21-year
estrangement between the communist
country and the United States. And
surprisingly, Nixon was the very first
US President to visit China. Then in
1990, the Batman theme by Danny Elfman,
it won a Grammy Award for the best
instrumental composition at the 32nd
annual Grammy Awards. Then in 1995,
American businessman and adventurer
Stephen Fawcett, you might remember this
on the news, but he became the first
person to fly solo across the Pacific
Ocean in a balloon. It was the first of
his many aviation records. Then in 2003,
Bill Mayer's political talk show,
Real Time with Bill Mayer, it debuted on
HBO. And then finally
in 2004, Simon Cowell,
he was set to appear in a new episode of
The Simpsons and the idol judge played a
nursery boss who gets punched in the face
by Homer Simpson. Well, happy birthday if
today is your birthday. You share a
birthday with Kelsey Grammer, he's 70
today, and Jennifer Love Hewitt, she's
46. And the number one movie on this date
back in 2003 was Daredevil. It's a movie
about the comic book superhero, which
starred Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner.
And during the filming, the two became
closer friends, which eventually turned
romantic in 2004. And then the number one
song on this date back in 1980 was Do It
To Me One More Time by Captain and
Tennille. This is a great love song. And
apparently the sexual tension of the
song was in stark contrast to the husband
and wife's very public persona of being
quote, "aggressively wholesome." In fact,
the husband and wife team were described
as this, quote, "White bread wasn't just
a part of the duo's menu, it was their
entire meal," end quote. Well, the duo
enjoyed one week at the number one spot
and it was the second and the last of
their two number one hits. Okay, let's
move on to some personal growth in the
book review segment of Morning Cereal.
This is where we take a few moments to
reflect on lessons learned from the
current book we're reading. And as you
all know, currently we're still reading
through Dale Carnegie's How to Win
Friends and Influence People. It's a
timeless book that is consistently on all
the must-read lists and it's packed
with rock-solid advice and actions for us
all to use and build healthy
foundational concepts to live by.
Yesterday we began chapter 4 of part 3,
which is entitled A Drop of Honey. And
Carnegie threw us straight into the fire,
suggesting we avoid the fight, we avoid
the argument, avoid telling people
outright that they are in the wrong and
that we should take the time to
understand our differences, take time to
understand the person. Then there is the
likelihood that we can find some common
ground to agree on, but cool heads must
prevail and tact must be utilized.
Carnegie reminds us that, quote, "a drop
of honey catches more flies than a gallon
of gall," end quote.
And Carnegie starts us
off today by saying, quote, "If a man's
heart is wrinkling with discord and ill
feeling towards you, you can't win him to
your way of thinking with all the
logic and Christendom," end quote.
Carnegie gives two more
examples of avoiding the
fight. The first story relates to the
account of another strike for more pay
and acceptance into the Union for auto
workers. And at that time, and as we
learned yesterday about the Rockefeller
strike, these strikes could be very
cantankerous and even violent. The
president of the company, instead of
condemning and threatening the workers in
this current strike, the president
praised them for being peaceful and he
bought them baseball bats and gloves and
he rented out a bowling alley for them to
pass the time.
Carnegie says, quote, "This
friendliness on the part of the president
of the company did what
friendliness always does. It begot
friendliness. And the strikers settled
in under a week and even cleaned up the
grounds around the factory while they
were striking." And in the second story,
Carnegie cites a lawyer, Daniel Webster,
that was famous for giving some of the
most powerful
arguments with friendly remarks
like, quote, "It will be for the jury to
consider," or "This may perhaps be worth
thinking of," or "You, with your
knowledge of human
nature, will easily see the
significance of these facts," end quote.
Webster did not bulldoze, he didn't
pressure or force his opinions on the
jury, but he used a
soft-spoken, quiet and
friendly approach. For those of us that
aren't company presidents or famous
lawyers, Carnegie next gives an account
of a man that was looking to get his rent
reduced. The man wrote the landlord
telling him of his intent to leave at
the end of his lease, although he really
wanted to stay if he could reduce his
rent. And when the landlord came to visit
him, the man met him at the door, quote,
"with a friendly greeting. I fairly
bubbled over with
goodwill and enthusiasm,"
end quote. The man looking to reduce his
rent went on to complement the building
and how it was ran, and you recall from
earlier in the book,
he was, quote, "hardy
in his approval and lavish in his
praise," end quote. He
said he'd love to stay
another year but just couldn't afford it.
And the landlord, after hearing all this,
hardly even knew how to handle this nice
reception, and he started to open up
about his troubles with the other tenants
that were constantly complaining
about this and that. And the landlord
found it a relief to have a tenant like
this man who was just being friendly and
complementary. And the landlord offered
him a rent reduction to entice him to
stay. The man said it was the, quote,
"friendly, sympathetic, appreciative
approach that won," end quote. Here,
Carnegie gave two other short accounts of
how the same friendly approach gained
another positive outcome. Following that,
he then cites a fable about the sun and
wind fighting over who is stronger. The
wind blew and blew to try and get a coat
off of a man, nearly reaching
tornado-forced winds,
but the man just held
on tighter. The wind eventually gave up
and then the sun came out and smiled on
the old man, who wiped the sweat off his
brow and took off his coat. This fable
ends with, quote, "gentleness and
friendliness were always stronger than
fury and force," end quote. And Carnegie
says this simple philosophy is
demonstrated, quote, "day after day by
people who have learned that a drop of
honey catches more flies than a gallon of
gall," end quote.
Well, believe it or not,
that brings us to the end of chapter
four, which is
entitled "A Drop of Honey."
And Carnegie's principle number four is,
"Begin in a friendly way." So there you
have it. And to recap thus far what we've
covered in part three, which is
entitled "How to Win People to Your Way
of Thinking," Carnegie's first four
principles are this. Number one, the only
way to get the best of an argument is to
avoid it. Number two, show respect for
the other person's
opinions. Never say you
are wrong. Number three, if you are
wrong, admit it
quickly and emphatically. And
number four today, begin in a friendly
way. Okay, on Monday we'll begin chapter
five, which is entitled "The Secret of
Socrates." So you know that will be an
interesting chapter, so join us on Monday
for that. Well, you've done it. You've
made it to Friday and the weekend is just
around the corner, as is warmer
weather. So over the next few days look
for the opportunities to take the
friendly and the high road, and we'll
reconvene and share stories about it on
Monday. Alright, thanks for joining. Have
a great weekend and have a fantastic day.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
the Morning Serial
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Live It channel.
You can find more episodes and videos by
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and at seaningless.com, where you can
also follow our other
podcast, the Mr. and Mrs.
Inglis podcast and the
Life Happens podcast.
In these other podcasts, we'll dive
deeper into everyday issues,
self-improvement and
well-being, business and finance, and we
welcome special guests too.
So join us.
It'll be a good time, I promise.
Thanks again for listening.
Have a fantastic day and
we'll see you tomorrow.